A coach, his killing and our dangerous culture

The circumstances of the AFL coach’s death mirror those faced by Australian women every week.

By Phil Cleary

July 19, 2015 — 8.28pm

I never met Adelaide coach Phil Walsh, whose alleged murder at the hands of his son in the family home on July 3 stunned Australia. I was eight years into an 18-year career as a player and coach at Coburg in the VFA when Walsh first pulled on a jumper with Collingwood in 1983. I'd paid little attention to his football journey until he was appointed coach of Adelaide and I happened to catch his interview on Fox Footy's On the Couch in March.

In the interview we were reminded that, at 55 years of age, Walsh was the oldest man to be appointed to a VFL/AFL coaching position. So too did we learn that it was normal for him to go to bed early – at 8.30pm – rise at 2am, and to grapple daily with the emotional demands of football. Although it was impossible not to wonder about the effect of Walsh's Spartan-like approach to football on his family, his candour and distinctiveness of character was refreshing. On the couch, and in the coach's box, he appeared not to be a man given to the delusions of grandeur that sometimes befuddle coaches.

Illustration: Jim Pavlidis

After Walsh's death, or more precisely, alleged murder, most people were paralysed with bewilderment. Could a father really die at the hands of a son, as police allege? If so, surely not this father? I was overseas when the news of Walsh's death arrived. The heartfelt words of my 21-year-old son, a Coburg-listed player, were redolent of the incomprehension sweeping the football community.

Yet, as shocking as the news was, I didn't respond like my son or mainstream Australia. Since the murder of my sister at the hands of an ex-boyfriend nearly 28 years ago, I have long ceased being shocked by "domestic murders". In Australia, about 60 women a year are murdered by men with whom they've shared an intimate relationship, with the number surging towards 40 over the past six months. The killing of a father by his son might be the exception, but the capacity of men to kill, whether it's the mother of their children or a woman to whom they've expressed undying love, seems to know no bounds. So serious is the violence perpetrated by men in domestic settings, a royal commission in Victoria is now examining ways of stemming this reign of terror.

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Amid the eulogies to Phil Walsh and expressions of shock, few journalists dared to place the alleged murder in the context of family violence. That task was left to former AFL player Peter "Crackers" Keenan, who in Inside Football under the headline "Sorrowful week highlights scourge of domestic violence" wrote, "Our community is wracked by too much domestic violence ..." The scourge of family violence remained absent from last Wednesday's memorial service and the media's reportage. I understand why Meredith Walsh called for a prayer for her son, Cy, the 26-year-old charged with murder, and why Crows chaplain Mark Purser described him as a "young man today grieving the loss of a father". Neither logic nor religion can dictate how Meredith can or should manage the nightmare that has engulfed her.

However, just as we must accept that a trial, not rumour and ill-informed opinion, must determine Cy's guilt or innocence, we should avoid making comments, even if they might be true, that might appear to diminish the gravity of "domestic" violence. When the man who killed my sister lied to a court about his remorse, my blood boiled. So too did it boil during last year's AFL grand final when Tom Jones sang his 1968 hit Delilah, a song that glorifies the stabbing murder of a woman by her former lover. We've come a long way since violence in the family home and so-called "crimes of passion" against women like Delilah were seen as a private, family matter or a man's prerogative.

As debilitating as an alleged murder of a father by his son might be for a family, it should not be met with weasel words. To date there is only one victim, a dead father; a man so driven that his great coaching mate, Mark "Choco" Williams, said "We need to be inspired by Phil, be driven by Phil. But remember to take time for each other and take time for your loved ones". To his credit, Phil Walsh admitted that football consumed too much of his life and that he was trying to rectify this and mend bridges with his son. With Cy Walsh's guilt yet to be determined, it's not possible to fully explore the implications of Williams' parable. Too often the explanations and excuses we've offered for male violence have served us poorly. Freed of the legal constraints, however, Williams' words, along with those of Keenan, will in time provide the premise for a much more enlightened discussion about man's capacity for violence, particularly in the family home. They might also pre-empt a discussion about the forces at work in the football industry.

If Phil Walsh's family life was compromised by the maniacal drive for success that besets AFL coaches, then let's examine that culture. It might lead to the realisation that, contrary to the mantra of some in the media, being a great coach isn't predicated on aping the traits of a Nietzschean superhero. The picture of the Adelaide Crows players throwing their arms around teammates and opponents in a grief-stricken tribute to a simple country bloke was proof of that. These were men grappling not just with loss but an allegation of murder, which, as I discovered long ago, produces grief almost beyond comprehension. If those young blokes and their followers come to treat the killing of women with the same passion, Phil Walsh's death might emerge as a seminal moment in the campaign against family violence.

Phil Walsh asked that his players be brave and courageous. It's courageous of Peter Keenan to set Walsh's death against the landscape of domestic violence and for Mark Williams to raise the spectre of a more caring culture. Ultimately, Walsh died in circumstances, whatever legal explanation might be found to explain them, mirroring those that claim the lives of women on a weekly basis across Australia. We forget that at our peril.

Phil Cleary played 205 games with Coburg and was a premiership player and dual premiership coach. He is a former independent federal politician, the author of three books and a long-time anti-violence campaigner.